Hub, Router or Switcher

Can someone give me a brief comparison between the three....


-thanks

 

A hub is a "unintelligent" broadcast device -- any packet entering any port is broadcast out on every port. Hubs do not manage any of the traffic that comes through their ports. Since every packet is constantly being sent out through every port, you end up with packet collisions, which greatly impedes the smooth flow of traffic on your LAN.



A switch, on the other hand, isolates ports -- every received packet is sent out only to the port on which the target may be found (one caveat - if the proper port cannot be determined, then the switch will broadcast the packet to all ports). Essentially, a switch is a router, but one operating at the MAC level rather than the IP level. Since the switch is intelligently sending packets only where they need to go, and not everywhere willy-nilly, the performance speed of your network can be greatly increased.



Router:
A router is leyer 3 network device that is used to connect two different networks together.


a router decides which way to send each information packet based on its current understanding of the state of the networks it is connected to. A router is located at any gateway (where one network meets another), including each Internet point-of-presence. A router is often included as part of a network switch.

In short

Hubs cannot make switching or routing decisions they just broadcast whatever goes in them.
price cheap

Switches make decisions based on layer 2 switching

Routers make decisions based on layer 3 routing

Of course there are some switches that can also make layer 3 routing happen. Very expensive

Just take a look at some of the prices of some modules on cisco routers especially the 12000 series

 

Very brief indeed

Thanks dude. It's all clear now...

 

My pleasure